Read-a-thon Day
This is part five of a six part series: End of Year Honorable Closure Ideas
The end of the year offers a chance for us to celebrate as a classroom learning community in many different ways. This series highlights some of my favorite ways to honor the end of the year with students.
The end of the year is upon us! We can almost taste summer. And yet, instruction is still happening in between field day egg toss and the best yet talent show. Some might even ask, how? How do we keep kids engaged all the way up to the last day of school (and keep our dear teachers happy?)
One way I’ve found joy (and kept my sanity) on the last few days of school is to schedule a read-a-thon. As a class we chose a day where we plan to read ALL 👏DAY 👏. Each year, the grade level sets a theme and goes all out. The last two years it was ‘camping’ so we busted out the ‘tents’, invited students to bring in blankets and flashlights to get cozy, and we built a fake campfire.
One of the best tips my mentor Lizzie ever gave me was to teach into partner talk during my read aloud time. I do this WELL before we ever start book clubs. Think of it as a bridge to book club talk. Before we start our read aloud for the day, I introduce a little anchor of what makes a strong book talk. Here’s a version of that chart from my first grade classroom way back in 2015. Please don’t judge the giraffe boarder.
What are your favorites that aren’t on this list?
